HUNNEMAN: Recalling building diamonds in the rough

Two decades ago, Murrieta was growing faster than the Dodgersâ bandwagon after an Opening Day win.

With the growth came a dire need for sports and recreations field to serve the thousands of kids who came to the region.

Baseball diamonds were scarce in the city at the time and usually filled with players from Murrieta National Little League, which had been established years before.

In 1994 a group of parents set out to establish a PONY baseball league in the young city.

PONY stands for âProtect Our Nationâs Youthâ and grew out of a baseball program established in the 1950s at the YMCA in Washington, Pa. It was originally called âProtect Our Neighborhood Youthâ but the name was changed when the program expanded.

The first challenge locally was to find a place to play.

âJohn Duncan made it his goal to find a piece of land,â Mike Adriance, one of the leagueâs founders, told me this week. âHe and his secretary started making phone calls trying to find vacant land in the city we could use.â

One day his secretary came to Duncan in tears because she was so discouraged, Adriance said.

âJohn turned to her and said âwith each No, we are one step closer to hearing Yes,ââ Adriance said. âIâve never forgotten that.â

Eventually the volunteers worked out a lease with the Rancho California Water District on 13 acres of tumbleweed strewn dirt in a flood plain on Fig Street next to Murrieta Creek.

âOn the day after Thanksgiving in 1994 we started dragging all those tumbleweeds off that field,â Adriance recalled.

Using donated materials and volunteer labor, the group began building six baseball fields. The goal was to have the diamonds ready to play in the spring of 1995 for the 700 kids who had signed up.

As work got underway, and word spread, something amazing began to happen. People began showing up to drop off donated items, everything from electrical supplies to landscaping.

One man arrived with about two dozen trees and a backhoe and planted them around the property, Adriance recalled. Other businesses and individuals made similar donations.

âIt gave me faith in human kind when people would just drop stuff off without ever asking for anything,â Adriance said.

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